Perhaps it’s because I’m hyper aware of any news related to MAID, but over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been seeing more content related to assisted death in Japan.
First, I stumbled upon this trailer for the 2022 Japanese film ‘Plan 75’. Here is the description from IMDb:
Government program Plan 75 encourages senior citizens to be euthanized to remedy an aged society. An elderly woman whose means of survival are vanishing, a pragmatic Plan 75 salesman, and a Filipino laborer face choices of life and death.
Does this trailer leave you feeling something … profound? Of course, like many things, it moved me to tears. This is why I haven’t been clamouring to watch the film yet - there’s enough dystopia in reality, isn’t there?
The next thing I stumbled upon was this eye-catching headline earlier this month from The New York Times:
One of the qualities I hope you appreciate in my writing is my relentless pursuit of trying to figure out what people are actually trying to say. Before we clutch our pearls and scream “how unethical!”, let’s pause and consider.
Yusuke Narita, the Yale professor in question pictured above, claims he’s been taken out of context.
From the article, here’s an excerpt:
Dr. Narita […] was mainly addressing a growing effort to push the most senior people out of leadership positions in business and politics — to make room for younger generations.
Yet, earlier he had said:
“I feel like the only solution is pretty clear,” he said during one online news program in late 2021. “In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly?” Seppuku is an act of ritual disembowelment that was a code among dishonored samurai in the 19th century.
When asked to elaborate on his thoughts about seppuku, he referenced that cliff scene from the 2019 horror film Midsommar. If you know, you know. Not quite for the faint of heart.
As I’ve said before, fiction can do so much in helping us understand our own beliefs and values. In a recent episode of HBO's The Last of Us1, the main characters discover a hidden commune in the Rockies while navigating a post-apocalyptic world. Here, the members of the community explain their unique system of resource distribution, which is based on bartering. While it's not made explicit, this system seems to prioritize the needs of older adults and people with disabilities, highlighting a potential alternative to utilitarian approaches to resource allocation in times of scarcity. However, the series hasn't finished yet... so you never know.
After watching Midsommar a couple of years ago, I found the symbolism behind the cliff scene to be quite thought-provoking, once the initial shock had worn off. The fictional Swedish society celebrated the ritualistic passing of their elderly, and the elderly themselves were happy to go at the age of 72. I wondered what might have happened if an elder actually wanted to see 73?
At the very least, I’m still not quite sure what Dr. Narita was trying to say. He claims he was taken out of context but some of his reasoning is too shocking to ignore. I wonder, how would his ideal society look? What would he prioritize? What would you?
I strongly recommend reading the rest of the article here for more information - it’s a fascinating read. They even mention Plan 75!
This next article from The Atlantic in 2014 has many overlapping ideas with what we’ve discussed so far. Since I read this article as a young bioethicist in 2014, I think it’s required reading for everyone, not just those in bioethics.
According to his website, Dr. Emanuel is a bioethicist, health policy expert, oncologist, professor, writer, cyclist, and chocolatier. He is currently 65 in February of 2023.
From the article:
That’s how long I want to live: 75 years.
This preference drives my daughters crazy. It drives my brothers crazy. My loving friends think I am crazy. They think that I can’t mean what I say; that I haven’t thought clearly about this, because there is so much in the world to see and do. To convince me of my errors, they enumerate the myriad people I know who are over 75 and doing quite well. They are certain that as I get closer to 75, I will push the desired age back to 80, then 85, maybe even 90.
Read his beautifully written article from The Atlantic here.
He revisited his now famous article in a podcast published an hour before I was writing this (wow!). He also discusses medical assistance in dying within the episode. Listen here.
There is so much more where this came from. There are few topics more relevant to our day-to-day living than death, eh?
I usually consider myself to be a reproductive ethicist, but really, I’m just a current zeitgeist ethicist, aren’t I.
I hope these topics don’t create anxiety in you the way they used to for me. I’m realizing, once I take a step back and surrender to the curiosity of it, the exploration of these ideas in bioethics has enriched my life beyond measure. Perhaps, with this attitude, and a tissue box, I will go ahead and watch Plan 75.
As always, my friend, I hope you have a beautiful, cozy weekend ahead of you! Happy reading!
-Nipa
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